Yukon Ho!

June 27, 2006

Biking time: 11:00AM to 5:30PM
End: Mukluk Annie’s (near Teslin)
Distance: 104km
We woke up at 4:30 to the sound of a thousand or so birds fighting over a single piece of bread about 2 inches from the tent. Despite it being bright as noon already, we managed to get back to sleep, only to be awoken again at 6, 6:30, 7, 7:30 and finally, 8AM by RVload after RVload of Southern tourists spotting moose across the lake. Figuring we should get an early start in order to make up for yesterday’s pathetic 52km, we decided to get out of the tent and make breakfast.

As usual, we were spotted immediately by a couple of RVers who wanted to know all about the trip, and also wanted to tell us everything about their dog Sassy including her brand of dog food and the number of mosquito bites on her pink belly.

As we were cleaning up, a trucker who had been parked there all morning awoke from his nap and we joked with him about how easy it was to sleep there. We ended up talking to him for about an hour about trucking, the roads, the tourists, his dad’s doormat (”I don’t dial 911, I dial 9mm”), and his disdain for the rules imposed on truckers (weigh-ins and logbooks).

We finally got away (reluctantly and into the wind) at 10AM, with a meagre goal of 54km to the Yukon Day Use (picnic) Area, but with an unspoken hope to make it to Teslin — a 96km trek. The riding started a bit rough as far as wind goes, but there were some decent gradual downhills that carried us along, and before we knew it we had covered 40km and were ready for lunch. During one stretch of straightaway in the morning, a pickup passed us very slowly and rolled their window down. A woman poked her head out and yelled “Gee you guys are slow!” — it was “Mom” from Rancheria, our safe haven in the rain of two nights before.

During our lunchbreak, a big rig rolled in with a flat tire, and I (acting like a little kid) got all excited and went over to help fix it. Turned out it was a cut in the sidewall (unfixable) which the guy may not have found if it weren’t for me due to his tinitus and my eagle-ears.

On we went, confident we’d make Teslin (even if it killed us), and we re-entered theYukon and passed the Day Use Area with ease. As with all towns, they put a pile of hills on the highway in, but despite their best efforts the road engineers couldn’t keep us down today (actually we should thank them because the highway was 8m shorter than the Milepost book said — they had straightened a bunch of curves and flattened a bunch of hills since 2002). By 5:30 we were coasting down a huge hill overlooking Teslin, which is a sweet little town on a small outcropping of land which sticks out into a beautiful lake. Leading us into town was the longest bridge span of the Alaska Highway, and waiting for us at the end was our first access to high speed internet since Stewart.

After firing through our email at the breakneck speed of $6 per hour, we decided to ride yet another 14km down the highway to eat at Mukluk Annie’s, where the camping is free and the breakfast (tomorrow will be so sweet) is all-you-can-eat. Knowing they closed at 9, we were kind of in a hurry when we left Teslin, so we spent 5 minutes grocery shopping and then hit the road. The 14km was not too bad since it followed Teslin Lake and the sun had finally come out in full force for the first time in several days. We pulled into the restaurant at 8:30, and it was still 1/3 full of people (plus a few more late arrivals just after us) so we didn’t feel bad about being the last jerks to arrive and order at the exact instant they were going to close. Our waitress was obviously new though, and she somehow figured that they wouled close the dining room right at 9, even though they said the kitchen was open til 9. So she started telling all of the tables one-at-a-time that they had to hurry up, and she even told the people next to us that she was going to bring their food in a take-out container. Weird. So I told her that we eat really fast, and she kind of agreed we could sit there. In the meantime, we got our food and she must have gotten some instructions from the boss because she came back to tell us we didn’t have to rush after all. She was scared of everyone and everything so it must have been the first hour of her first shift of her first job in her entire life.

Anyway, dinner was great and we ended up doubling yesterday’s 52km because we are friggin hardcore. Three more days at 60km each will bring us to Whitehorse for Canada Day Eve. All is well again in the world!

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June 26, 2006

Biking time: 12:00PM to 6:30PM
End: Swan Lake Rest Area
Distance: 52km
We woke up at 9am in sweet sweet darkness instead of the neon yellow glow of the tent at 5am. For your reference, today’s sunup was 4:30AM and sundown will be 11:11. When we get to Dawson City, sundown will be after midnight. It does make it a bit hard to sleep in a tent, but biking all day kind of balances it out.

We had a long drawn-out breakfast before going back to the room to pack up. Trouble started early on Monday when Sean poked a huge screwdriver-sized hole in his finger while trying to modify his rear panniers.
After some quick first aid we were on the slow road to Windsville. We have no scientific measurements but my estimation is that the wind was blowing into our faces at a speed of about 73mph. Consequently, we stopped for lunch at the Continental Divide after only 20km, and stayed there for about 2 hours, reading last year’s Milepot and trashy celebrity gossip magazines.
Another 20km later it was nearly dinnertime so we stopped at the Swift River Lodge -a gravel parking lot full of trucks, 4 condo-style cabins, and a log cabin rammed with smoking locals and tacky Yukon trinkets. The bathrooms had placards (their official word for “sign”) instructing us to not drink the water due to possible contamination (and autographed by the Yukon Health Minister himself). We bought hot rods, cheese, trail mix and gum and got the hell out.
A couple more kilometres down the road we crossed the border back into BC (the Alaska Highway does this 3 times from east to west), and though there was a sign to let us know we were back in BC, the shit road conditions were more than enough indication. In the next 12km we hit loose gravel twice, potholes every other pedal stroke, and extreme dusty conditions.
Around 6:30, after having only gone about 52km (again -thank you plateau winds) we decided it was best for our sanity if we stopped for the night at Swan Lake Rest Area. As we were setting up our stove, we were stopped by a guy named Jim Abalone (like abalone) who was travelling in his covered pickup truck. He wanted to film us talking about our journey. He took our email information too, so he’ll probably send us a copy of his vacation movie when it’s done. After getting over our movie star selves we made some Stovetop Stuffing (Happy Thanksgiving!) to complement our hot rods & cheese, set up the tent behind an outhouse and went to bed (falling asleep to the sweet sound of Southern American RVers at the rest area spotting moose in the distant lake).

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June 25, 2006

Biking time: 11:00AM to 7:30PM
End: Rancheria Motel
Distance: 97km
We woke up about 730am and packed the tent in record time to avoid being eaten alive by mosquitoes, then biked up the road to Sally’s.
The cafe was packed with 6 bikers and 2 big-rig drivers but Glen had the table on the screened-in back patio all to himself and his cup of coffee so we joined him. He told us about some more crazy mountain shit he does (cans his own preserves, has a friend named Bear Bait who’s been scalped by a bear once and treed twice) while we scarfed down awesome breakfasts.
After about an hour and a half of coffee-drinking and blab-blabbing we said good bye, stocked up on beef jerky at the convenience store across the road, and started down the Alaska highway.
We had a couple patchy sprinkles early on but nothing too bad, and we stopped to chat with a couple of American cyclists so that put us in a pretty good mood. Nothing really started sucking until after lunch. The long slow grades that had been such a welcome change from the drastic ups and downs of the Stewart-Cassiar started to piss us off. We just kept climbing these hills that wound around lakes and rivers for miles where it looked  like the road couldn’t possibly go any higher. We also started to get a bit of a headwind, followed by a light shower that came along and soaked us before we realized it wasn’t going to taper off like the earlier showers had.
We would have pulled over and camped right then but there was absolutely nowhere to pitch a tent and everything on us and our bikes was soaked and frozen. We wanted to be someplace with a roof so we just kept climbing into the wind and the rain and the godforsaken HILLS of the Yukon PLATEAU (friggin’ liars) until we finally hit Rancheria Motel -a collection of little brown and white Swiss-style motels, cabins, gas station and restaurant. We leaned our bikes against the laundry cabin and made for the restaurant. We opened the door on the 60’s. The place was awesome -the lights were dim and all the walls and tables were made of dark wood. There was a massive fish tank built into the wall that separated the diner from the bar and the wood walls were covered in huge glossy wooden plaques with pictures of wildlife printed on them. The bar was full of stuffed animals -deer, bear, muskrat, wolf, squirrel, owl, goat- you name it, they had it stuffed and on display in that bar.
The only people at the tables were the older couple that owned the place and the cook. They’d watched us ride up, sat and laughed while we changed in the bathroom, then chatted us up, superfriendly, and served us coffee, beer, hot beef sandwiches, potatoes and pie.  During dinner Sean and I decided the thought of going back out in the rain and the cold was too soul-destroying and, since we hadn’t showered in a week or washed clothes in two, it was worth the $55 for a room so we could clean our supplies and selves.
Done deal. The waitress/owner showed us to #11 -a very 60’s room in a million shades of orange and brown- where we washed all our clothes in the bathroom sink and hung them from every hang-able off-able surface to dry.
It was the best place to cure the worst mood and we never wanted to leave. Plus it showed up 4km earlier than we’d expected it to.

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June 24, 2006

Biking time: 11:00AM to 8:00PM
End: Alaska Highway
Distance: 121km

We started today with a trip to the store, talked to the ladies there for a while, and even met a customer from Saskatchewan who gave us a free admission to his Drive-In theatre for when we drive back across Canada.

Because we’d stretched our distance the day before,  the logical overnight stops on the way to the end of the Cassiar didn’t make a lot of sense. Good Hope Lake (pop. 35) was only 20km from Jade City, and Boya Lake Provincial Park was only 35km. So our tentative goal was a BC Forestry Recreation Area (nothing but a fire pit and a picnic table usually) at the 65km mark.

At Good Hope Lake, we stopped at their only store and bought some Hungry Man meals to microwave for lunch (anything to avoid cooking for ourselves). We also drank coffee and worked on their jigsaw puzzles for a few minutes. Outside, I filled our camp fuel (41 cents worth) and spoke to a weird guy from Idaho who was deperately trying to complete some paperwork to move with his family to Good Hope Lake. I guess he fell in love with it during his two days of camping there.

Onward to the entrance to Boya Lake, where we pedalled right past without even considering the 2km side trip to see the campground and lake. At the 65km mark, we didn’t even see a sign for the BC Forestry site, so we just kept going. Somewhere along the way we officially left eh Cassiar Mountains and entered the Yukon Plateau, which was nowhere near as flat as we’d hoped, but much flatter than yesterday’s ride. At the 95km mark, we pulled into a small rest area to talk to a solitary cyclist who was eating there. His name was Paul and he was cycling to San Francisco after having flown to Alaska to start. He was travelling really light… serious headwids had made him reconsider a lot of his gear, and he ended up completely removing his front panniers and rack, carrying everything he needed on the rear alone. He told us there were some rolling hills ahead but that we were close to the junction. We had already mentally prepared for going the entire 120km so we bid him goodbye and trekked on. Mud Hill was still to come, and though we were expecting it, what we were not expecting were 20km of non stop up and down rollercoaster hills. The problem with these “rolling hills” is that you never get back the energy that you put in, so you feel like you are forever digging yourself out of a ditch. Finally at 116km, we reached the Yukon. That’s right, we finally climbed our way out of BC. Fr some reason, the Yukon put their welcome sign at the top of a gravel hill, so we couldn’t get a picture with the bikes against it. Morons. However we did virtually coast the entire way from the sign to the junction of the Alaska Highway where we wasted no time gettig off the bikes and going to Sally’s Cafe for burgers on homemade buns. Normally I’m not a fan of ground beef, but they were literally out of stock of everything else, and it turned out to be a damned good burger (especially after not eating for 100km).

After dinner we started talking to another patron named Glen, who was a real life mountain man. He showed us pictures of a walk he took last winter. An 80 mile round trip walk into the woods in January, where he lived in a cabin alone for a month and a half. He was building himself a cabin on some land that he’d bought down the road, and by the looks of it, he had some sort of relationship with the cafe owners because he stayed when they left, and he appeared to eat for free at the very end of the day when all the customers had finished.

As they closed up, he told us about a lake only 500 metres down the road, so we headed there and camped with the most mosquitos we’d seen on our entire trip… even more than in Bonus lake (a.k.a. Mosquito Lake, where we thought our stomachs were a bear).

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June 23, 2006

Biking time: 10:30AM to 7:00PM
End: Jade City
Distance: 113km
The stretch of the Cassiar North of Dease Lake was supposed to be “nicely paved” based on conversations with just about everyone we’d met along the Southern parts of the highway. I guess they had actually meant that it was “kinda paved but not until you pass 25km of gravel North of Dease Lake”. Fortunately, we were made aware of this stretch last night after a brief conversation with a local RCMP highway officer, so we weren’t caught off guard. This stretch is also a pain because it is 138km to the next “town” (population 35), so the options for eating and sleeping are limited. We had decided we should start off early and stretch our legs to reach Jade City, which is not actually a city as much as it is two stores across the highway from each other who both sell jade (and have a  bit of a rivalry going). The store on the East side of the highway advertised free camping, so we figured it was a good goal to set. Knowing there would be some hills and some gravel, though, we had two backup plans: Dease Rivver Crossing Campground at 66km and Moose Meadows Campground at 84km (where we had heard they have singalongs at night… perhaps a good excuse for me to touch a guitar for the first time in a month).

Our plan to leave early was thwarted by Eddie and Bea, as they arrived to eat breakfast just as we were finished eating. We talked to them for abot an hour about bikes, campsites, work, destinations and everything else we could think of before finally setting off. Because they cover over 100km most days, we’ll probably see them again when they pass us later on. Today was teir off day though, and we had to it the road in order to make the goal of Whitehorse for Canada Day.

We set out (uphill again) and reached the gravel section quickly. We were lucky to be riding it in dry weather because it was well packed and smooth, which was not too bad but it would have been treacherous in the rain. Partway through the gravel section we stopped for a quick snack at a rest area and spoke for a while with a woman from Chicago who was travelling on her own in her small SUV. SHe had everything in the back set up as a small bedroom, with a little stereo, some dresser drawers and a narow mattress. She was also using a mapping GPS for nerd points. It kind of made me miss the van.

After conquering the gravel, we were riding around a long curve with a cliff to our right and a lake below us on the left. In the middle of the curve, there was a stopped car (which always makes us worried that there is a bear on the highway getting fed by idiot tourists). Turns out there was a moose standing in the middle of the lake below, so we watched as she slowly walkeed across and out of the lake into the woods. Nature, Goulet!

We passed Dease River Crossing with energy to spare, so we kept going. Their location looked amazing though, with most of the sites having a perfect view onto a very wide, slow section of the river against a backdrop of amazing mountins. Our next stop was at a garbage can near Moose Meadows Campground, and we figured since we’d already seen a moose (and it was only another 30km) w emight as well go all the way to Jade City.

What we hadn’t figured on was a pile of crappy mountainous hills between us and Jade City. But there were. So it took a lot of grinding and a bit of time, but we finally made it. One plus side of all of the hills were the numerous sweet lakes and cabins we passed, all of which we wanted to live in. When we got to Jade City, we browsed their store for about 5 minutes, bought some chocolate bars and went to score our free camping. They actually have a real campground there with picnic tables and gravelly levelled sites. There was one other RV next to us, and they were too scared (probably of being murdered) to open their door when I knocked and asked for water. Instead they told me througha crack in their window to ask at the store. We made noodles and sauce and went straight to bed. Two weeks into this camping trip and we haven’t had the energy for a campfire yet.

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June 22, 2006

Biking time: 10:30AM to 4:30PM
End: Dease Lake
Distance: 73km
We left Lorraine’s this morning knowing that we had a hell of a climb ahead of us. Our starting altitude was 1060M, and according to our sources, we had a pass ahead of us at a height of 1240, and between those two points a river crossing with a climb back up which we’d been warned about at every stop since Meziadin Junction. Fuelled by all of the oatmeal in our food bin, we started the day with a comfortable descent to about 970 metres where the “Brake Check” pullout was. Thus began the switchbacks down to the Stikine River. The worst part was that the road was gravel all the way down to the bridge (well packed gravel, but still potholed and stony enough that we had to take it slow all the way). At the bottom, we were at 675 metres altitude, which was depressing since that’s where we were two nights ago at Bell II. Then we climbed. We climbed for an hour on an 8% grade (in the gravel), back up to the 970 metre height of the first brake check. Then we kept climbing on rolling hills (thankfully paved) for the next three hours, stopping for lunch just before we hit the 1240 metre summit. Just before the summit, I was almost run over by a transport truck, but as always he was moving too fast for me to get his licence plate  number so that I could live out my windshield-smashing fantasy at the next truck stop. On a much lighter note, halfway up the initial grind from the river crossing, we stumbled upon a small herd of horses just standing on the side of the gravel highway. One had a bell around its neck, so they had either escaped their pen or were left to roam freely on the road. One even let me come close and be his friend, petting his neck (until he quickly turned away and farted in my face… for real).

After the summit, we flew. We literally coasted for 20km, pedalling only when we felt like it, until a final tiny uphill took us into Dease Lake. Dease Lake is the only “town” on the entire Stewart-Cassiar Highway (except for Stewart, which doesn’t count since it’s 65km off to the side). We were able to get groceries for the first time since Stewart, and we were able to have dinner in a restaurant for the first time since Bell II. Dinner was great at Mama Z’s (that’s Zee not Zed), and she let us store our food inside while we camped in the side lot. Just as we were leaving to pick a tenting site, we spotted another cyclist on the road. He was fully loaded and looked like he was trying to find information from the passing drivers. So we followed him, thinking he may have been our German buddy from Port Hardy. He turned into a parking lot, so we followed, and found him and his cy cling partner setting up in a picnic shelter at the commercial campground. He (Eddie) and she (Bea) had cycled up the mainland from Montana, and were dying of hunger, so we led them to Mama Z’s. They didn’t have much time to talk because the restaurant was bordering on closing, but we found out theat they were also headed to Dawson City, and that they had ridden about 120km in one day, meaning that they had not only done the Stikine valley and Gnat pass, but also the Iskut hill that we had done the day before. They also said they’ve only had one day under 100km on this highway. They are taking today off, but after their inspiration we are going to aim for 100 tomorrow. I’m sure they will pass us before Whitehorse, and we can ask them a lot more questions then. Still no sign of the German guy though.

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June 21, 2006

Biking time: 9:30AM to 6:30PM
End: A gift shop North of Iskut
Distance: 93km
In one of our travel brochures, we read about the festivities in WHitehorse every Canada day, so we’ve made it an informal goal to make it there by July 1. With over 800km to cover in 10 days, we figured we should get off to an early start for a change. Our goal for today was Iskut, 80km away. Armed with the knowledge that the first 10km would be downhill, but the next 5 very uphill, we figured that it would be possible, but not at all easy. So off we went, my legs burning with desire to be asleep (even on the downhill). And we were not wrong about the climb. We actually ended up climbing higher than our starting elevation, in half the distance. It had taken at least 40 minutes to climb, if not more. But we also had 15km under our belt. Almost there! Amy flew ahead while I stubbornly trudged against wind, hills and (very light) rain, grumbling at each pedalstroke. Aftre what seemed like days to me (and minutes to Amy), we reached Kinaskan Provincial Park for lunch. The park was quite nice, though all the campsites were small and gravelly. One major bonus though, was that half of them were on the Lake, so you could swim (or fish) right out of your tent door.

Our afternoon ride was much better for me. The sun came out a little more, which always helps, and the roads tended toward the downhill variety. For a few kilometres leading into Tatogga Lake, we had to fight for our space against the quarry trucks on a sloppy gravel road surface. We had actually been looking forward to the gravel construction because we’d been told (by Wolf) that they often have a “pace truck” which leads the cars through the construction, and ferries cyclists across the gravel section. Unfortunately for us, he’s a dirty liar. Regardless, I kind of enjoyed the gravel challenge, and the gravel sections were all downhill.

At Tatogga, we took a break from the gravel and bought coffee (and gas for the stove) at the little resort built there. The restaurant/store area was filled with antlers and statues and other log cabin style decorations. Promintently featured trophies included: a carved bear, 4ft tall, on sale for $1200, a jade inukshuk, 2 ft tall, on sale for $2400, a matching pair of moose heads, both cleaned to the bone, complete with antlers, and a stuffed bobcat with a saran wrap rainsuit. We got 83 cents worth of gas.

After coffee, we were treated to more downhill gravel, followed by a stretch of road with a fantastic view of Eddontenajon Lake and an even more fantastic wind at our backs that literally blew us the rest of the way into Iskut. Poor little Iskut, having been the object of our dreams during 80km of pedalling, never had a chance. We got there and it was closed, so we hate it. No really. There is one store in Iskut, and since their power was out, they were closed. The cashier was inside, but I guess she could not count high enough on her fingers in order to make cash sales with no powered register to help her. We sat and got angry for a few minutes, then decided to forget about the store and continue toward (and up) the legendary Iskut hill. At the top we’d be rewarded with a used book store owned by the grandmother of some kids whose mother told us about it.* Are you ready? At an elevation of 1080M, she was not home. Closed again. So we toook some pictures of her Llamas, and rode on, hoping for food. Then… a sign. It said “food, gas, etc, etc for next 6km”. Then on the left, the Bear Paw resort, advertising “Fine Dining”. DO IT. Are you ready? CLOSED. Well, not exactly. It was open, but only in the sense that the door was unlocked and there were people inside. Apparently, despite their roadside advertising, this lodge only feeds people who are “reserved guests”, meaning the only buy food for you if they know you are coming. Thanks for nothing.

And finally, hungry as the wolf, we pulled in to Trappers Gifts, where we found many souveniers but no food. The owner Lorraine assured us that she was the last business Northbound for a good 70km to Dease Lake. She invited us in for coffee and told us that we could camp there for free. She wanted to offer dinner, but didn’t have enough prepared, but we were happy enough to have a great camping spot, so we made our own dinner (Curry Inna Hurry). Before heading out to cook and camp though, I fixed the universal remote on her TV and took a look at her laptop’s internet problems. Nerds on site indeed.

*You can breathe now.

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June 20, 2006

Biking time: 12:15PM to 6:30PM
End: A gravel pit North of Bob Quinn
Distance: 74km
Still very relaxed from our hot tub and sauna fest, we slept in this morning and then headed to the restaurant fort breakfast. What a great way to start a day of biking. After finishing our food, we took full advantage of the free coffee refills before hitting the showers. By the time we started packing up the tent it was after 11. As we finally started biking away, I remembered that I’d wanted to check our tire pressure for a few days, and knowing we had a mountain pass to cover in the morning, I figured it would be a good time to do it. Unfortunately after topping up my rear tire, I pulled the damned valve clean out of the rim, ripping a hole in the tube. Oops. So we ended up staying at Bell II an extra half hour while I replaced my tube and topped up our other three tires.

Finally we were off. The morning ride was fantastic, as it wound through the mountains passing over a few streams and creeks. We were worried about the morning ride because we had read that it would take us through Ningunsaw Pass, which sounded like a mountainous climb. What we couldn’t figure out was why the pass was claimed to be 466m when our starting altitude at the lodge was over 500m. We had figured it was either a typo, or we’d be subjected to a valley descent followed by a clim bover the pass. Turns out the pass is really just the location after which the streams feed into the Ningunsaw river instead of the Bell-Irvine. So most of the morning was downhill, a welcome break from yesterday. For about a half hour we followed beside the Ningunsaw River, and its twisty current that looked amazing and gave me the urge to ride down it in a tube.

As the road turned away fro mthe river, we were forced back uphill, part of which was ridden against the wind and into the rain. Awesome! We passed by Bob Quinn, a small trailer community where seasonal road workers set up camp. Past Bob Quinn, we hit some very patchy sealcoat and spent the rest of the day doing the same thing as yesterday: climbing a hill after every corner. After 70km we were ready to die, so we started looking for somewhere to camp. We stopped at a gravel pullout and made dinner, then continued on to find a camping spot down the road so that the bears wouldn’t be able to find us at the end of their delicious dinner-scented rainbow. After a few minutes, we saw a sign for a Brake Check ahead, which said only one thing to us: DOWNHILL. We checked out the grade warnings, and discovered that we were about to be treated to a 10km downhill stretch, but that it would be followed by a 5km uphill stretch that appeared to end at the same elevation as the start. We started down, knowing that we would not climb the other side today, and 1km into the descent we spotted an RV parked in one of the small gravel quarries next to the road. So in we swooped and met Marcel, Ed and Wolf, three road workers who were just finishing up. We found out that Marcel was living in his RV on that site during the job, so we asked to tent there. Of course it was no problem, and he even stored our food in his truck for us. So even in the middle of Nowhere, BC we were able to find someone to camp with, and an entire bear-proof dump truck to store our food in. Stop worrying, Mom!

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June 19, 2006

Biking time: 10AM to 5:30PM
End: Bell II
Distance: 92km
After we laid down on our mats on the floor of the cabin, we started hearing a LOT of scurrying upstairs, most likely from the little feet of squirrels (in training for a marathon by the sounds of it). To avoid being climbed on all night, we set up the tent inside again, with the bonus of drying the tent out from our rainy evening in Stewart.

In the morning, we decided to hit the cafe one more time (having paid our dues as newbies, we get treated like regulars now so it’s not so bad). By 10AM we were finally back on track toward our goal. About 5 minutes into the ride, we hit some construction and were told by a bearded worker that there was a huge hill to come, but after the peak we’d be sailing downhill the rest of the way. He was right about the hill… and the hill kept going for a lonnng time. And there was a downhill, but it wasn’t very long before we were climbi ng again. 25km later we finally reached a fantatic swooping downhill with an unbelievable view of mountains all around us. At the bottom was the Bell-Irvine river crossing, and a rest area where we stopped just long enough to eat half-cooked falafel burgers and get half eaten by every bug in the forest.

As with every river crossing, we had to climb back up the other side of the valley. Thus began our day of climbing. Beyond every crest and every curve was another uphill. Each grind up resulted in 3 minutes or less of downhill bliss before the net grind started. And most grinds offered a fake peak where the steep part ended, and instead of glorious downhill, we were presented with more climbing. On top of it all, the road turned from pavement to sealcoat, which is an acceptable surface to ride on, but for some reason its lack of lines and old-school appearance make it a bit depressing to be on. Our 88km goal seemed to be gettig further and further away. Finally, cursing every corner and every hill, we reached the Rest Area 2km short of the next “town” (called Bell II because it is at the second crossing of the Bell-Irvine River). It was a nice little spot with a path down to the water, and the warmest lake we’d seen yet (it even had a floating swim platform 30 feet out). Too cold and tired to actually swim, we just washed ourselves and a few clothes while we contemplated staying there or visiting the next town where we might have to pay to sleep. With the promise of a restaurant only 2km away, we decided we might as well keep going. Luckily it was a 2km coast downhill (finally) to Bell II Lodge, which turned out to be the only thing IN Bell II. Well, they got us. We paid $20 to eat, but boy was it worth it. Then we paid $13 to camp, grumbling about it at first but it really turned out to be worth it too. The campsite was nothing fancy, but the perks were. As guests of the resort, we were welcome to use their showers and — even better — their hot tub and sauna. So we did. For a couple of hours. We went back to the tent that night cleaner than we’d been in years. So paying to camp was not so bad after all. At the Provincial Parks, it costs $16 and you are lucky to get  hot water at all. $13 for both of us including hot tub access? Sold!

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June 18, 2006

Biking time: ten minutes
End: Meziadin Junction (again)
Distance: 62km
Today’s goal was to get an early start (breakfast) and then hitch a ride back to Meziadin where we could continue biking to the next town (94 km to Bell II). After returning to Silverado’s for more friendly feeding (too bad Debbie wasn’t there), we hit up the bakery next door for an hour of internet and a cookie. Then it was off to the phones to check in with the family (and send out some father’s day wishes). By the time we were on the road with our thumbs out, it was already 11am. Hitchhiking sucked. One problem was that Stewart, being on a dead end street, did not have a healthy flow of traffic in either direction. It seemed for every 4 vehicles going in, only one came out. Most were small RVs or regular cars, so the hopes of any being big enough to accommodate both of us and our loaded bikes was small enough. What we were really hoping for was an empty pickup or a really large RV (preferably one towing an empty pickup). After waiting two hours (being passed with a wave by two pickups) we reluctantly started riding out of town… the only other option being to stay another night and try again earlier Monday morning. Ten minutes into the ride, we saw a pair of Greyhound-sized RVs come barelling up behind us. We were able to wave the first down, but were turned away under the guise of “no room”. Despondent, we flagged the second, and the cheerful couple was willing to give us a try. We strapped our bikes atop the covered bed of the pickup they were towing, and threw the bags in the pickup cab. Then we got to ride up front in the RV in full leather couch glory. Thanks Vivian and Adriaan! The two of them were hilarious, and they told us stories of their travels (the RV/Bus has been their fulltime home for 3 years). We also learned that they were actually driving to Alaska with the first RV that turned us down… and it sounded like the first couple didn’t pick us up because they were afraid we were criminals. Culture of fear! It only took 45 minutes to climb back up to Meziadin Junction, but it was still too late to trek on to Bell II, so we hit up the cabin for a second night. Before calling it a night, we went back to the ol’ Meziadin Cafe for a coffee, and it’s a good thing we did. Somehow we’d managed to win over the restaurant owner to the point where she even gave us the ends of the banana bread for free because she can’t sell them. She also gave us a bunch of tips about the road North, whereas the day before she just answered my questions with “Dunno… Haven’t been up that was in 5 years”. Perhaps it being our third visit made us “regulars”, or perhaps Friday had just been a bad day, but we will leave this corner tomorrow morning with a bit of a better feeling toward it. Before we left the cafe, we had a good chat with a couple coming up from Kitimat (south of Terrace) who had lots of tips for free camping along the rest of this highway. They have been vacationing up in this direction for years, and were on their way for the first time to Whitehorse. A big thanks to all of our helpers today, and it’s off to the creaky cabin for bed.

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